all of the things that I don't need (are weighing me down)
by nobody nowhere
Summary: Because at the end of the day, Sasha might actually be the best of them all, and that's worth a whole lot more in the long run than anything else Summer and Charlotte might have to their names (and she'll just keep telling herself that over and over, for as long as it takes until she honestly believes it). Sasha-centric introspective, set sometime after the BFFs break-up/implosion.


so this originally started out as something much different to what I ended up with. somehow I went from what was meant to be Sasha being resentful and secretly a little bit broken up over the BFFs breakup interacting with a sweetly snarky, passive-aggressively secretly-attempting-to-be-comforting Alexa Bliss to, well, this. this being basically just a bit over a thousand words of what essentially amounts to Sasha Banks introspection, because she turned out to be way more complex and thoughtful to write than I had anticipated

so yeah, no dialogue, all introspection, but surprisingly short for something written by me, and I think it's a decent little snapshot of Sasha's character as I interpret it. um, enjoy?

* * *

Sasha doesn't actually enjoy being angry. There's irritated, and then there's frustrated, and there's the sort of annoyed-furious she can get in matches, where it flares up and dies down and doesn't stick in her stomach with an ugly, simmering, sickening weight like this does. Heat and flash and flare are good, because they're instantaneous, there and then gone, giving her just the little extra burst she needs to win a match or prove her point. She can control that sort of momentary fury, direct it as she needs and then just – let go, let it all go, once she's done what needs to be done and it's time to move on to the next thing, or celebrate, or whatever it is that comes after she's harnessed that quick-hot energy and applied it to whatever needs doing.

This is different, and not in a good way. _This_ sits in her stomach, heavy and insidious and dragging her down in everything that she does, colouring the way she looks at everything with the weight of betrayal – and that's exactly it, isn't it? Because apparently she's the only one who actually thought that this could be something that would last – or at least last _longer_, _lord, they didn't even make it a year_. But no, Sasha's the naïve, pathetic, afterthought yet again (she always has been, hasn't she, the unwilling-unwitting third wheel, always taking the backseat), because apparently she's far too idealistic even now, and it sticks in her throat, choking her up every time she catches sight of blonde hair flicked over a shoulder or a tall, slender silhouette, and –

It's too much, sometimes, to even bear thinking about, and so Sasha doesn't. That's what instinct is for; just letting go, just giving over to the motions she knows so well by now that she could do this in her sleep. She might be the afterthought, the forgotten one, but maybe it's almost an advantage in a way, because secretly, Sasha might actually just be the best wrestler of the three of them, and at the end of the day that's what will matter the most, even more so than being tall and blonde and ambitious. Movie star credentials and the right wrestling pedigree can only carry one so far, but Sasha has never been carried at any point of her career to date, and she doesn't intend to start now.

She tried to do it the easy way, with allies to watch her back and guard her front and cover all the bases she couldn't quite reach on her own, but it turns out that was a sham and if she has to do things the hard way now, then fine. Fine. She will. Let Summer and Charlotte wear themselves out worrying the NXT Women's Championship between them like dogs fighting over not even the barest scraps of a bone (well, the title is certainly much more than that, but it doesn't feel like it sometimes, the way they talk about using it to launch themselves, like they haven't already stepped off the launch pad a long time ago, just like everyone else).

Let them fight each other to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. Sasha is _happy_ to let them have that, because she's gunning for something much bigger than just the title. Sasha is going to be _the best_, and that's worth more than any petty argument they might possibly be having over the title right now. Let Charlotte and Summer squabble back and forth. Sasha doesn't care; she'll start at the bottom all over again and work her way up ten times over if she has to.

Not that she particularly wants to, really, but she knows that she can if she has to. Because Sasha is the Boss, and she's going to make sure that she's also the best. Maybe not 'the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be'; she'll settle for just being _the best_, period. In ten years looking back, Sasha wants everyone to be able to realise that she always was the best, and she'd just never really chosen to show it until now.

It's a long series of small steps that will get her there, and that's something that the rest of them haven't yet seemed to realise. The other two think they can just bypass the little things, because they've already done one or two of the bigger ones now, and Sasha could almost laugh at just how wrong they are. But it suits her better to have them ignorant for as long as possible, so she doesn't say anything at all. Maybe it's a step backwards in someone's eyes to be wrestling the likes of Alexa Bliss and Becky Lynch and yes, even Bayley – and Sasha doesn't have to like them; doesn't even have to admit to them that she respects them, except that she actually does, or why would she ever even waste her time in the ring against them? It might be a step back in somebody else's eyes, and she can pretend it's a step down in her own, but this is how a foundation is built to last – brick by brick, step by step, day by day.

Long after the likes of Summer and Charlotte or Emma and Paige burn themselves out, chasing too hard to hold on to the things that won't even really matter in the end, it's Sasha who will still be there when they've gone. Sasha and those like her (_there is nobody else like her_) that hang back and put in the long yards and the hard time and all the effort in the world. Let the bright stars have their moments in the light, because one day Sasha is going to burn much brighter than they ever did, because she worked for far longer as just a dull little flicker in the background.

Sasha's never actually been a dull flicker by any measure, but she can pretend well enough for now. Lay the foundation, pay her dues, work as hard as she has to until she has a legend that lasts, and casts everyone else she's ever fought and clawed and scratched and struggled against into shadow.

She doesn't need Summer and Charlotte; has never needed them – Summer provided the impetus for something, certainly, but only insofar as she just hastened the inevitable. This is who Sasha is, and so, how could she ever have failed to find this? Even on her own, as she was before, pretending to be quiet and polite and friendly and respectful of her fellows; she can only be who she is, and so she only ever could have carried on pretending for so long.

No, she doesn't need Summer or Charlotte, and so she doesn't need this anger, either. Maybe it will take a little while longer before she's ready to let go of the weight of it all, but Sasha doesn't doubt that she'll get there. She's going to be the best, after all, so she can't let something as small and petty (and painful and upsetting) as what they used to have hold her back. This betrayal is nothing (and everything, and yes, it does hurt, but only deep inside where nobody else can see it), _nothing_ in the long run. Because she's the Boss and she's going to be the best, and everyone else just needs to get used to it now and stop trying to fight the inevitable.

The Boss, the best, Sasha Banks. It has a nice ring to it, she decides.


End file.
